Reverse Engineering: F111 Aircraft Panel

Problem:

Ageing metal & honeycomb panels in F-111 aircraft suffer from degradation. Metal replacements are no longer available.

Approach:

A suite of tools and capabilities required development to replace existing metal panels with advanced composite panels.

Solution:

An equivalent functionality approach was adopted with reverse engineering used to determine critical loads. “Troublesome” honeycomb core was replaced with integral stiffening. Low cost tooling was manufactured using surface replication via photogrammetry. Low temperature prepreg was used to manufacture the panel. Validation was confirmed with cold proof load testing of a panel on an F-111.

Outcome:

The developed solution enables extension of aircraft life. Design, repair and rapid manufacturing capabilities are broadly applicable to repair design and implementation, and rapid manufacture of highly loaded composite structures.

ACS Australia was established in 2008 by the Cooperative Research Centre for Advanced Composite Structures (CRC-ACS) for commercialisation of the expertise and technologies developed by CRC-ACS. All ACS Australia staff also work within CRC-ACS.